Ivanov E.M. Overcoming naturalism in philosophy of consciousness //Sociosphere, 2023.- ¹1 - p. 27-35; ¹2, - p.47-61.
Iintroduction
By naturalistic theories of consciousness we mean conceptions, that postulate in one form or another that the phenomenal consciousness is derivative from the brain (more generally, consciousness is derivative from “matter” - physical reality). There are two main varieties of naturalistic theories of consciousness — functionalism — a theory according to which phenomenal consciousness is a “brain function”, regarded as some kind of invariant with respect to the way it is physically realized, and a dubl-aspect approach — according to which phenomenal consciousness is an “internal aspect” of that “from the outside” (from the perspective of a third person) is perceived as a physical object - the brain. We emphasize that we will understand consciousness in this work in the context of the “hard problem of consciousness” (according to Chalmers [13]), i.e. to understand it precisely as a phenomenal consciousness - the totality of everything that is directly experienced by the subject (in a sensual and non-sensory form).
In this article, we will not deal with a description of the structure and properties of phenomenal consciousness, nor a detailed presentation and analysis of functionalism and a dubl-aspect approach — we have already done this in other publications [2, 3]. The purpose of this article is to show that naturalism in understanding the nature of consciousness, in any form, encounters at least four insoluble problems for it and, therefore, a constructive solution to these problems requires a rejection of the naturalistic paradigm of understanding the nature of consciousness and its relationships with the brain. At the end of the article we will show how these problems are successfully solved outside the boundaries of naturalism and why such an “anti-naturalistic” understanding of consciousness not only does not contradict the modern physical picture of the world, but, on the contrary, it is directly assumed by this picture.
1. Criticism of naturalistic theories of consciousness
The four mentioned problems, insoluble within the framework of naturalism, are the problem of the nature of sensory qualities (“qualia”), the problem of the integrity of phenomenal consciousness, the problem of the nature of the individuality of our “Self” and, finally, the problem of the “causal ability” of phenomenal consciousness (which can also be denoted as the problem of explaining my ability to reliably know that "I am not a philosophical zombie").
Let us consider these problems in sequence. We start with the question of the nature of the sensory qualities we experience (which in modern analytical philosophy are denoted by the term “qualia”). We are talking about such modally-specific qualities of our sensations as color, taste, smell, sensation of heat and cold etc. The essence of the problem of the nature of qualities is that they obviously present in our sensory perception and are nevertheless completely absent from the scientific (physical) picture of the world. From the point of view of physics, as well as the physiology of perception, sensory qualities are not present in the composition of physical reality and are, as it were, conditional “signs” in our sensory consciousness of various intervals of purely quantitative characteristics of the properties of physical objects. So the colors “encode” certain intervals of the frequencies of oscillations of the electromagnetic field, smell and taste “encode” various geometric forms of molecules acting on taste and olfactory receptors, the sound tone corresponds to the frequency of vibrations propagating in the air, the sensation of heat and cold denote idifferent quantities speed of molecules in our environment, etc. From the point of view of physics, qualities are always “hidden” behind some purely quantitative characteristics of physical objects that we perceive.
Thus, if we proceed from the “ontological” nature of the physical picture of the world (that is, we recognize that “things themselves” exist exactly as physics describes them), then we must also recognize that “things themselves” do not have qualities - they have no color, no smell, no taste, they are not cold and not hot, they do not sound, etc., and therefore all these qualities are created by consciousness. It is consciousness gives colors, sound, taste and smell to that which in itself (according to Descartes) possesses only “spatial extent and movement” - after all, this is how modern physics describes all material objects surrounding us. But if consciousness is a “brain function” or an “internal aspect” of the physical state of the brain (as, for example, G. T. Fechner suggested), then where can these very qualities come from in order to be “added” to a low-quality picture of physical reality? After all, the brain is also a material object, consisting of atoms and molecules, which, like atoms and molecules in other material bodies, do not have any qualities in themselves. When I see something green, nothing is green in my brain, and cannot be green - because there is no such physical property of being green. Also, the idea does not work that subjective states correspond not to physical, but to special, “functional” or “informational” states of the brain that are “invariant to the method of their physical realization” [1]. Indeed, it does not follow from the very idea of functional or informational properties that they should be subjectively experienced in the form of any qualities. As for "pure information", it is by its very nature is a kind of invariant, in relation to one or another way of its sensual "coding", in particular, with the help of qualities. For example, information about a particular wavelength corresponding to red could be presented in consciousness without using the sensation of red. We could, for example, distinguish wavelengths using different hatching (red - "vertical", "green" - horizontal, etc.) or with the help of inscriptions that appear in our perception: "red", "green" etc.
How can one try to solve the problem of the nature of qualities within the framework of the naturalistic paradigm? Such a train of thought is possible that B. Russell once proposed [10]: qualities actually exist in the composition of physical reality, but due to the particularities of the method of science, they are absent (ignored) in the scientific (physical) description of this reality. The thing is that, according to Russell, qualities “in things” and qualities in consciousness do not correspond to each other. For example, the physical “red” is not necessarily depicted as “red” in the consciousness. Therefore, physics, striving for objectivity, is forced to operate with purely quantitative relations invariant to the method of their qualitative presentation, which explains why qualities are absent in the scientific description as elements of a physical theory. In our opinion, this theory is hardly plausible, since it leaves unresolved the question of our ability to describe sensual qualities precisely as qualities, and not as a quantities. We are obviously able to express the presence of sensory qualities in our perception through speech: I see red and say: "I see red." A speech utterance is a physical act. If I am talking about the experience of red, it is obvious that it is this experience of red that is the original reason for this my talk about red. Therefore, “red”, is something endowed with “causal power”, is something really acting in the physical world. But physics is precisely that science that describes everything that somehow acts in the physical world. If the qualities physically act, but at the same time, physics ignores them for some reason, then this can only mean one thing: that the physical picture of the world is not complete, it lacks some important elements that can causally affect other physical objects - namely, there are no qualities. But modern quantum relativistic physics, as we now imagine it, gives us, apparently, an exhaustive description of the ordinary atomic-molecular matter of which man is composed: physics gives us a detailed explanation of how atoms are built, molecules, how they function and interact with each other, etc. We do not find any “white spots”, “puzzles” that could be solved by introducing “qualities” into the ordinary atomic-molecular physical theory. What has not yet been fully explained physically (for example, the nature of "dark matter", "dark energy", "superstrings", etc.) - can only be related to objects of cosmological scale or exist in relation to a range of very high energies that are unattainable in the Earth’s conditions, and, therefore, everything that can be discovered in these high energy ranges (for example, the fact that the particles are not dots, but strings), can in no way manifest itself at the level of ordinary physical human existence . Thus, B. Russell's theory of the origin of qualities should be rejected as unrealistic.
Another more fundamental approach to the problem of qualities is the radical denial of the representative (mediated) nature of sensory perception. From this point of view, we see not “images in our head”, but things themselves - as they exist “in their own right”. We see not representations, not copies of things, but the "originals" themselves. This point of view is known in philosophy as “intuitivism ” or “neorealism”. From the point of view of intuitivism, “things are exactly what they look like” (as the founder of intuitivism A. Bergson claimed) and, therefore, qualities is not something “added” to the perception by the consciousness itself, but there are objective properties of the things themselves, which we perceive directly and directly "in the things." Thus, the problem of the origin of qualities is removed, but this is achieved at the cost of abandoning the ontological nature of the scientific picture of the world, which presents us with a quality-free physical Universe. If true reality, according to intuitivists, is exactly what is revealed to us in sensory perception (“human life world”), then a science that conflicts with this sensual picture of the world should be thought of as a kind of culturally conditioned “superstructure” over this sensual picture. Objects of science, such as atoms, electrons, electromagnetic waves does not correspond to anything really existing and from the point of view of intuitivism are pseudo-essence, existing only in the "minds of scientists". They exist only in our thinking and imagination due to the culturally determined desire of a person to somehow organised their diverse sensory experience into a strict system. It is clear that in this paradigm of thinking it is also impossible to seriously consider the psychophysical problem - therefore, in this case we have not so much a solution to the quality problem, as an elimination of the problem field itself within which this problem arises. In any case, here we go beyond the limits of the naturalistic paradigm, which treats consciousness as something derived from the brain, and the very problem of consciousness as such, within the framework of intuitionism, as a matter of fact, “evaporates”, becomes irrelevant. Thus, intuitivism (and the theories close to it - phenomenology, M. Heidegger's “fundamental ontology”, etc.), due to their denial of the ontological nature of the scientific picture of the world, cannot be regarded as an effective way to solve the problem of the nature of qualities, since the very foundation statement of this problem is destroyed here. A significant drawback of intuitivism can be seen in the fact that this theory not only deontologizes the scientific (physical) picture of the world, but, in particular, it contradicts the generally accepted physiological and psychological theories of sensory perception, which clearly suggest representative nature of any sensory perception, and, therefore, they exclude the possibility of “direct access to things themselves” at the level of sensory perception of reality.
As a result, we can state that within the framework of the naturalistic paradigm, which considers consciousness as something derived from the brain, the problem of the nature of sensory qualities seems insoluble - there is no place where qualities could have arisen, they are absent both in nature and in the brain.
The second insoluble problem for the naturalistic paradigm is the problem of explaining the integrity of phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness (the totality of the experienced) consists obviously of many different sensory and non-sensory elements (sensations of various sensory modalities, perceptual images, representations, meanings, emotional and volitional acts, etc.) which, as introspection shows, are not experienced by us in isolation from each other, but as parts of a single “phenomenal field of the experienced” - in which individual elements of experience given together with their relationship to each other. For example, in the case of visual perception, the integrity of consciousness manifests itself in the form of the existence of a single perceptual “visual field”, inside which individual visual sensations exsist as integral perceptual images (gestalts), and these images themselves also included into integral visual perceptual field. When I see, for example, a person’s face, I do not see separately the left and right eyes, mouth, nose, ears, etc., but I see the whole face as a single gestalt, an integral structure in which all these elements of the face are exist with relationship between them. Perceptual fields of various modalities are also not isolated from each other - but form a single polymodal perceptual field of the sensually experienced by me.
A similar form of the integrity of consciousness also exists for elements beyond the limits of the actual perceived. What I perceive “now” has some meaning for me - for example, it is experienced as a direct continuation of what was perceived at the previous moment in time. Thus, the actual perceived is experienced not in isolation from the previously experienced, but in some correlation with it, and this correlation (a kind of “super-sensual gestalt” of consciousness) forms the phenomenon of meaning. How can this integrity of consciousness, existing both in the synchronous (actual-sensory) and in the diachronic (semantic) planes, be ensured by the work of the brain? The brain itself, as a material object, is by no means something "single and whole." It consists of many relatively autonomous subunits - neurons (as well as glial cells), each of which is a separate living being, connected with other neurons only by purely external connections - through nerve fibers, dendrites, synapses, through the exchange of nerve impulses. Interneuron communication is not instantaneous, but with a significant delay. The speed of propagation of nerve signals through which neurons communicate with each other is very low - on average it is about one hundred meters per second. How can the combined work of this entire community of individual neurons provide the unity of my consciousness subjectively experienced by me?
If I am capable of not only experiencing separate isolated phenomena of consciousness, but also able to compare them with each other, directly visualize their similarity and difference, this means that the flows of information corresponding to these phenomena in the brain must somehow interact directly contacting each other. But from a physical point of view, this suggests that all these information flows should converge in one place, at one point - since from the point of view of the theory of relativity, long-range interaction does not exist and, therefore, direct interaction of information flows is possible only if they somehow “touch” with each other at any one point in space. But how is this possible in the brain? It is unlikely that there is at least one neuron in the brain in which all information flows from different sensory analyzers converge in order to make it possible to create an integral polymodal perceptual field of the actual experience inside this neuron. But even if such a neuron existed, then since it is also a very complex and extended object, all this sensory information inside one neuron would exist in a form distributed between its separate parts - i.e. and in this case a genuine unity of all this information units would be absent.
Usually, philosophers try to solve this problem of “linking” various elements of consciousness into a single phenomenally experienced whole from the position of the so-called “Emergentism” - it is believed that phenomenal consciousness arises as a kind of “systemic property” that belongs not to individual neurons (or even atoms or molecules), but to a certain set of interconnected neurons that form a single, “functional system”. But then the question arises: how do neurons really “know” that they are part of a certain unified system and that their states need to be combined in some incomprehensible way with the states of some other neurons, and how can such a functional union actually exist? If we assume that each neuron has some kind of its own “microconsciousness”, and my consciousness is formed from the sum of the consciousnesses of individual neurons, then how, by what principle is this association realized? The problem here is that there are no objective (physical) criteria for the division of the material world into any “separate systems”. For example, we say: “the refrigerator is a single system” or “the computer is a single system”, because the parts of the refrigerator and the parts of the computer together carry out some useful function from our point of view. In fact, this "useful function" exists only in our imagination, by virtue of our subjective understanding of the purpose of these objects. But then we must conclude that these objects themselves, as "integral systems" - exist only in our imagination, in our subjective "semantic coordinate system." From the fact that the refrigerator appears to us as a “single system”, it does not at all follow that all its parts somehow “feel” any kind of unity with each other and feel themselves to be “parts of a single refrigerator”. The same thing with the brain - from the fact that it is convenient for us to think of the brain as a functional whole, it does not follow that it really, ontologically acquires some kind of “wholeness in itself”, and "generates" a holistic phenomenal consciousness belonging to all this brain.
So we see that consciousness has an obvious phenomenal unity (integrity) of its contents, while the brain, consisting of a set of separate functional subunits, clearly does not have such integrity. From this we conclude that the problem of the unity of consciousness has no solution within the framework of the naturalistic paradigm.
The third insoluble problem from the standpoint of naturalism is the problem of the individuality of our "Self". Phenomenal consciousness does not exist in an impersonal form, but precisely as "my" (or someone else's) consciousness - as the consciousness of a specific subject (concrete "Self"). Is it possible to explain the individuality of consciousness from the standpoint of naturalism, i.e. based on the fact that consciousness in all its aspects is something derived from the brain and the physiological processes taking place in it? If all aspects of consciousness are determined by the brain, then the fact that I am just a given, and not some other subject, should depend on the brain. But what in my brain can determine my individuality ? It is clear that the individuality of my “Self” cannot be determined by the fact that my brain consists of certain “individual” atoms. Firstly, the atoms of my brain are continuously updated during the metabolic process, so that in a few years my brain will already consist of other atoms, which, however, will not affect the fact of the identity of my "Self" - I will the same person as before. Secondly, the atoms themselves (as well as the elementary particles composing them) of the same sort, from the point of view of quantum theory, are absolutely identical, indistinguishable from each other, so that the replacement identical atoms should not produce to any observable effects. Atoms and elementary particles are devoid of any individuality and if they cannot be distinguished even by their position in space, then they begin to literally turn into each other, exchangeing states, which leads to observable physical effects (the so-called "exchange interaction").
How, then, can my individuality stem from some material basis if matter itself is devoid of individuality and consists of absolutely standard, indistinguishable components? Proponents of naturalism usually answer this question this way: although the brain consists of standard, indistinguishable elements, devoid of individuality , but it, however, has a unique structure - a unique combination of these standard elements. It is the uniqueness of the structure of the brain that determines the individuality of my "Self". However, it is clear that the structure of any complex material system is not something absolutely unique. It is quite possible that in the future we will learn to copy any complex material structures up to the location of individual atoms. Already now there are tunneling microscopes that allow you to accurately scan the position of individual atoms on the plane. Using the same microscopes, it is also possible to purposefully move individual atoms, making up some compositions from them. If we can do something similar for a volume, then it will be possible to scan the location of individual atoms in three-dimensional material systems and create precise copies of various material objects, including living organisms. What happens if a living person becomes an object of copying? For example, I underwent a scan, and then, based on the received accurate information about the atomic structure of my body, my exact material copy is created. Suppose that this copy was not created on Earth, but on Mars. Does this mean for me that I will relocate to Mars as soon as my copy appears there? Obviously not. I am the subject of my own perceptions and my own actions. But I will not be the subject of the perceptions and actions of my copy: I will not feel what she feels, I will not be able to control her actions. From the fact that two material objects are identical does not follow in any way that there is any kind of exchange of information between them. Such an exchange of information should, among other things, be carried out instantly - regardless of the distance between me and the copy, but this is forbidden by the theory of relativity. So I won’t feel pain - if a copy is beaten, I won’t know what happens to it at all and whether it exists at all, which means that this copy is not me. It follows from this that an arbitrarily accurate copying of the material structure of the body and brain of a person will not lead to a copying of his “Self”, his personality. But this means that the individuality of the "Self" is not determined either by the individuality of atoms (which are devoid of any individuality and, moreover, continuously updated), or by the individuality of the combination of these atoms that make up the structure of the body and brain of a particular person. It turns out that the individuality of the “Self” cannot be determined by any material factors at all - since these factors are fundamentally reproducible, while the “Self” is absolutely unique, can exist only in one exemplar.
Sometimes one may hear such an objection: a copy of a human is fundamentally different from the original, since it is devoid of the social experience of the latter. However, since the social experience of the human is actually accumulated in his memory, and the memory, from the point of view of the naturalistic paradigm, is stored in the brain in the form of a material trace (engram), it is obvious, that copying the body and brain will also lead to copying social experience and in this regard the copy will not differ from the original.
So we see that the individuality of our “Self” is a property of consciousness, which is inexplicable from the point of view of the naturalistic concept of the derivativeness of consciousness from the brain. D. Chalmers proposes, as axiom of the philosophy of consciousness, the so-called “The principle of supervenience” [13] - from which it follows that two completely identical from the physical point of view of the brain must have identical consciousnesses. However, as we see, for such a property of consciousness as "to be a certain self-identical Self," the principle of supervenience is violated. The “Self” is not supervenient with respect to the brain, and has no explanation in the framework of the naturalistic paradigm.
The last fourth insoluble problem for naturalistic theory of consciousness is the problem of the “causal ability” of phenomenal consciousness. From the point of view of naturalism, the function of consciousness is identical to the function of the brain. Phenomenal experiences, from this point of view, are like some kind of passive accompaniment (“shadow”) of brain processes. But then the question arises: how, then, can we reliably know and make reliable judgments about the existence of our own phenomenal consciousness? If I experience a sensation of red, it is logical to assume that it is this experience of red that is the original reason for my saying "I see red." However, from the point of view of naturalism, the judgment “I see red” is produced by my brain due to its specific structure and current physical condition. Thus, it is this the physical state of my brain, and not the “sensation of red” that is the true reason for my judgment: “I see red.” Suppose that phenomenal consciousness can somehow be turned off without any changes in brain function. Such an assumption is not logically contradictory, which means that such a possibility of the normal functioning of the brain without “phenomenal accompaniment” cannot be ruled out a priori. The situation when the brain works in the normal mode, and the phenomenal consciousness is completely absent, is indicated in the philosophy of consciousness by the term “philosophical zombie” (p-zombie) [4]. P-zombie is a creature that is absolutely identical to a physically ordinary person, and also acts just like an ordinary person. The only difference is that the p-zombie is completely devoid of phenomenal consciousness. Obviously, the existence of p-zombiescan be thought without contradictions. Therefore, a priori it is impossible to deny the possibility of the existence of p-zombies. But then the question arises: how can I absolutely reliably know that I'm not p-zombie at the moment? Indeed, the existence of my phenomenal consciousness is completely obvious to me. I am absolutely sure that I am now feeling, thinking, etc. And so I know for sure that I am not p-zombie. But if p-zombie is fundamentally possible, then such reliable knowledge of the presence of one's own subjective phenomena is fundamentally impossible. Since p-zombies are functionally no different from an ordinary person, he will obviously give answers to any questions that are characteristic of an ordinary person. If you ask a p-zombie: “do you have a phenomenal consciousness?” - then he will obviously answer this question in the affirmative. Indeed, this judgment, from the point of view of naturalism, is produced by its brain, whose work does not change in any way due to the fact that the phenomenal consciousness is turned off. If, in turn, I am either in a normal state or in a p-zombie state, then in both cases my judgments about my phenomenal consciousness will be identical. That is, I will argue that "I experience something subjectively" regardless of whether I really experience something or not. That is, I will argue that "I experience something subjectively" regardless of whether I really experience something or not. But in this case, any of my subjective judgments about the presence of a phenomenal consciousness in my mind is fundamentally unreliable. If I claim that I have a phenomenal consciousness does not mean at all, in this case, that I really have this phenomenal consciousness. However, self-observation shows us the opposite - I obviously have absolutely reliable knowledge about the existence of my own phenomenal consciousness. How to resolve this contradiction? In order for the judgments about the presence of phenomenal experiences to be absolutely reliable, it is necessary that the existence of p-zombies was logically impossible. In other words, an essential connection between phenomenology and the function of consciousness is necessary - so without a subjective phenomenology a normal function of consciousness would be fundamentally impossible.
To solve this problem, it is not enough to postulate only the factual connection of the function and phenomenology of consciousness. For example, from the perspective of a two-aspects approach to solving a psychophysical problem, it could be argued that phenomenology necessarily exists as a correlate of brain function, since it is an “internal aspect” of the physical (or functional — according to Chalmers) state of the brain. Then the judgments about the existence of phenomenal consciousness, although they are made using the “external” (intersubjectively observed) function of the brain, will be true simply because this external function always also includes the “internal aspect” - a private subjective experience that correlates with brain function. However, my absolute confidence in the presence of the phenomena of my consciousness in this case essentially means that I, from somewhere absolutely reliably know that the two-aspects theory is correct and, therefore, the presence of a self-reporting function necessarily presupposes existence of the subject of self-reporting. But how can I know that? This knowledge is obviously a priori in the sense that it does not depend on any of my knowledge in the field of solutions to the psychophysical problem, and thus this knowledge can exist only if p-zombies are not possible logically, and not only in fact. But p-zombies are logically impossible only if the function of consciousness is not identical to the function of the brain (there is something more than the function of the brain) and if the function of the brain itself exists as something logically dependent on the existence of phenomenal consciousness. If I make a judgment: “I see red,” then it is this “red” as a subjective phenomenon, and not the brain, that should be the real reason for this judgment. Therefore, in order not to be an epiphenomenon, a powerless “shadow” accompaniment of the “brain function”, the phenomenal consciousness should be a real, and not a nominal, participant in mental processes, it should itself actively act, and not be a “shadow” of really functioning brain processes. Thus, here we also go beyond the framework of a naturalistic paradigm that considers phenomenal consciousness as a kind of “internal aspect” or “correlate” of the functional or physical state of the brain.
2. Beyond Naturalism
So, we have identified four fundamental problems of the philosophy of consciousness, which, in our opinion, are insoluble within the framework of the naturalistic paradigm. This is the problem of the nature of "qualities" (qualia), the problem of the unity of phenomenal consciousness (binding problem), the problem of the origin of the individuality of our "Self" and the problem of the "causal ability" of phenomenal consciousness. The brain, as a physical object, does not possess sensory qualities (since there are no qualia in physical reality), does not have the necessary form of integrity, cannot be the basis for the uniqueness of our "Self", because there are no of absolutely unique objects in phisical world, and from the point of view of naturalism, our ability to reliably know about the presence of subjective phenomena is inexplicable.
The solution to all these problems, in our opinion, is possible only beyond of the naturalistic paradigm. From a philosophical point of view, such a solution can be either the dualism of matter and consciousness, or radical idealism - considering physical reality as something derived from consciousness. If in the physical world there are no qualities, there is no integrity inherent in consciousness, there is nothing individual, truly unique, then it is natural to assume that all these aspects of consciousness - quality, integrity, individuality are not of a physical nature, but are introduced into the physical world “from outside”. In other words, there is “intangible soul” that possesses all these properties that are absent from matter, and which also has a certain independent “functional ability” that is not identical and not parallel to the function of the brain. From the standpoint of radical idealism, physical reality itself is regarded as a kind of “component” that exists “inside” consciousness and, therefore, consciousness, from this point of view, contains in itself some other components besides physical reality, and these components are responsible for the properties of phenomenal consciousness that are absent in the composition of physical reality.
However, if we postulate the existence of an intangible soul, then this soul must somehow interact with physical reality - otherwise we could not make judgments about our subjective experiences, which are states of this soul. Speaking is a physical act. If the processes in the non-material soul are capable of influencing the physical acts of speaking, then this means that the soul is capable of influencing the physical processes in the brain. But physics is a theory that describes everything that somehow acts in the physical world. From this we can conclude that the soul, since it is able to influence physical processes, is also some kind of physical object or, at least, should be somehow taken into account in the existing physical picture of the world. In addition, there is the causal closure principle of the physical Universe, arising from the fundamental laws of conservation (energy, momentum, angular momentum, etc.), according to which any physical events are the result of some other physical events. If we are given the physical state of the Universe at a certain point in time, then with unlimited computational resources we could, in principle, trace the entire subsequent and previous evolution of the Universe based on the solution of dynamic equations of classical or quantum mechanics. In other words, the Universe from the point of view of physics seems to be a kind of determined machine in which all states are predetermined by fundamental dynamic equations, as well as by initial and boundary conditions. In this case, the action of the soul on matter would inevitably give rise to a violation of the laws of physics, which it would be desirable to avoid.
Thus, if we want to correctly introduce the concept of an non-material (having other ontological properties than physical matter) soul, then it is desirable to do this so in order not to destroy the existing physical picture of the world, which means that the soul must “act” in the physical world in such a paradoxical way so that in this case it would not turn into a “physical object” (would not physically act on other physical objects) and would not violate the physical Universe causal closure principle. But at the same time, for consciousness itself there must be an illusion of the possibility of its actions in the physical world (since we really observe this “action of consciousness on matter”). Moreover, the existence of a certain non-material factor corresponding to the soul must in some way be assumed by the modern physical picture of the world. Some “non-physical” factor (not “acting” as an ordinary physical object but acting in a different sense) must exist, but nevertheless, this “non-physical” factor is important for a complete understanding of the physical Universe .
Fortunately, such a “non-physical factor”, which can be identified with phenomenal consciousness, really exists and we can easily identify it based on the quantum-mechanical picture of the description of physical reality. An amazing feature of quantum mechanics, which indicates a certain connection with the problem of consciousness, is the fact that the behavior of quantum objects depends on our ability to observe this behavior. If we are able to continuously monitor the movement of a quantum object, for example, the movement of an electron, say, using a Wilson camera, where a moving electron leaves a clear trace (track), then we will see that in this situation the electron moves like a classical point object, moving along a well-defined linear path. If it is not possible to trace the trajectory of an electron, then it moves like a wave - it moves along all possible trajectories at once and, under certain conditions, interferes with itself. It turns out that the properties of quantum objects depend on whether we can perceive their motion or not. Since observation presupposes the existence of an observer (having consciousness), the idea of some participation of the observer’s consciousness in physical processes arises.
From the point of view of the mathematical apparatus of quantum mechanics, the problem of the “observer” is interpreted as the problem of explaining the mechanism of “reduction of the wave function” in the measurement process. If in the initial state the quantum system does not have a definite value of the measured quantity, then after the measurement this system ubruptly changes - it goes into one of the eigenstates of the operator corresponding to this type of measurement, i.e. goes into a state in which the measured value already has some definite value. If we present the initial state as sum of the eigenstates of operator of the measured quantity, i.e. as a superposition, then we will see that the act of measurement leads to the destruction of all members of the superposition, except member that corresponds to the result of the measurement. This act of "annihilation" of all unrealized versions of the quantum evolution of the initial state is the process of reduction of the wave function. The essence of the reduction problem is that this process, as shown by I. von Neumann [10], cannot be described as the result of a Schr;dinger evolution of the state vector of the measured system as a result of its interaction with the measuring device. Instead a specific measurement result being obtained as a result of such interaction, we see the opposite - the measuring device itself (described quantum mechanically using the many-particle wave function) as a result of interaction with the measured object goes into a superposition state, so that each of the members of this superposition describe separate possible outcome of this measurement procedure. Thus, all possible outcomes of this measurement procedure are physically realized. The observer, however, sees only one, quite definite result of this measurement. How is this possible? It is clear that the purely physical interaction of the observer (as a many-particle quantum system) with the device and micro-object also will not lead to the act of reduction. As well as the device, the observer (his body and brain), as a result of interaction with the device and the micro-object, due to the linearity of the Schr;dinger evolution, also goes into a superposition state - it’s “split” and begins to exist as a set of its many physical copies, each of which sees a separate admissible outcome of a given measuring experiment, and thus, the subject as a whole should, in theory, simultaneously observe all possible outcomes of a given single measuring th experiment. However, subjectively, we always perceive only one possible measurement result in each particular experiment.
We can try to explain this fact from the standpoint of the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics [16]. In this case, in each act of measurement, where there is a spread of measured values, the observer’s consciousness “splits” into many parallel existing components, following the similar “splitting” of the observer’s body and brain, and each components of consciousness perceives only one of the outcomes of the measurement experiment. However, such splitting of consciousness in each measuring experiment does not seem plausible. We proceed here from the fact that the subject of perception (“Self”) is my consciousness. Consequently, if my consciousness “split” as a result of some quantum-mechanical measurement, then I, as a single subject of perception, should be present in all copies of my body and brain - corresponding to members of the superposition describing various outcomes of measurement. But in this case, I must simultaneously perceive all these experimental outcomes. But I always perceive only one specific measurement result. In order to avoid a contradiction, it is necessary to abandon the counterintuitive idea of “splitting” consciousness and postulate that although from the point of view of Schr;dinger evolution, the observer’s body and brain really go into a state of superposition (that is, they really exist in the form of many “quantum copies” - the number of which is equal to the number of members of this superposition), but the observer’s consciousness does not split at all, does not go into a superposition state, but, on the contrary, selectively perceives only one specific outcome of measuring experiment. In fact, consciousness chooses and makes perceived that version of the physical state of its own brain (an element of the superposition of the quantum state of the brain) that corresponds to one particular variant of the outcome of the measurement procedure. The disappearance of all other (unperceived) elements of superposition from this point of view can be explained by the fact that consciousness, choosing (through the act of sensory perception) one of the branches of the quantum process, irreversibly closes its access to all alternative branches of this process. These alternative branches, while do not disappear anywhere, nothing happens to them at all - they (and any of their "descendants") simply become inaccessible to sensory perception. Since the observation of one subject over the result of a particular quantum measurement does not contradict the observations of the result of the same measurement by other subjects, it should be recognized that this act of selecting a quantum alternative in the observer’s mind and blocking access to all unperceived alternatives is an intersubjective act - access to others quantum alternatives is closed at once for all consciousnesses belonging to the “intersubjective community of consciousnesses”.
So, the consciousnesses in this model have the ability to select a quantum alternative (in accordance with the idea of M. B. Mensky [11]) and this choice (mainly randoml, but taking into account the weight coefficients of the members of the superposition) is a equivalent of sensory perception of one member of the original superposition.
This is described in quantum mechanics as an act of reduction of the wave function in the measurement process. We emphasize that no real impact of consciousness on physical processes is supposed here. The “rejected” members of the superposition do not disappear anywhere and continue to evolve further according to the Schr;dinger equation, but the possibility of their perception, as well as the perception of any of their “descendants,” is blocked. This leads to a jump-like, physically inexplicable “reduction of the wave function” - which takes place only in the intersubjective perception of physical reality by some community of consciousnesses.
Since in our sensory perception a certain classical (uniquely defined) picture of reality is always given (whereas the quantum picture is usually multivariant), we can conclude from this that this classical reality exists only in the intersubjective (mutually coordinated) perception of some community of consciousness. Classical reality is a kind of selective projection of a more complex and multidimensional quantum reality into our sensory perception. Since classical objects do not disappear and do not change in an unpredictable way in time intervals when no one perceives them, then, therefore, there must also exist some “intersubjective” (common for this group of consciousnesses) memory in which this choices of quantum alternatives are “recorded” and stored (not physical way). Thus, we can argue that classical physical reality exists not only in intersubjective perception, but also, for the most part, exists in some common intersubjective memory of this community of consciousnesses. This memory does not exist in the form of a “physical record” on a material medium - since any material medium, as something quite classically defined, exists only “inside” this memory.
So, according to this concept of “consciousness in the quantum world”, which in essence is a modification of the interpretation of the quantum mechanics of Everett-Mensky (it is described in more detail in [3, 4, 6]), consciousness has significantly different properties than any physical objects . If the body and the brain “split” in the process of quantum measurement, go into a superpositional state, then consciousness, on the contrary, does not split, remains unified and act in such a way that it perceives only one single quantum alternative, while blocking in an intersubjective way access to all other quantum alternatives .
This means that consciousness is not the brain itself and is not a function of the brain - otherwise it would “split” together with the brain. It is precisely because consciousness is not part of physical reality, but only selectively observes this reality “from outside”, it can carry out physically inexplicable acts of reduction of the wave function. Further, we see that the brain itself, as a classical object, from the standpoint of this approach, exists only in intersubjective perception and memory, and does not exist outside of consciousnesses and, therefore, it cannot be the reason for the existence of consciousnesses. In fact, within the framework of this approach, it is not the brain that creates consciousness, but collective of consciousnesses that creates the "world of classical objects", the brain and the human body in intersubjective memory and perception through intersubjective acts of the reduction of the Universe wave function. A truly objective, supra-individual status within the framework of this model can be possessed only by a completely indefinite “quantum state of the Universe” for us, initially potentially containing all the possible results of observations at all possible points in time. Indeed, measurements of physical quantities in quantum mechanics always give us a certain eigenstates of the operator of the measured quantity, and the spectrum of eigenstates depends only on the type of operator of the measured quantity but does not depend on the initial quantum state of the measured system. This implies that, by measuring , we do not get any information about the initial quantum state of this system. This initial state irreversibly “collapses” as a result of the measurement and is replaced by one of the eigenfunctions of the operator of the measured quantity. But, if, as we have shown, acts of reduction of the wave function occur only in consciousness (in intersubjective perception and memory), then any “clarification” of the quantum state of the object as a result of measurement is also a process that proceeds only in consciousness itself and not has nothing to do with “objective reality”. Thus, physical reality “in itself” remains completely uncertain, unknown to us both before and after the act of measurement [4].
Quantum mechanics, as we see, does not describe the dynamics of any objective reality, independent from consciousness, but only describes the evolution of our sensory perception: it allows us to calculate the probability of observing one “classical picture of the world” on the basis of other “classical picture of the world” at some distant moments of time - provided that no observation was made between the two measurements, which corresponds to the understanding of the wave function as a “notebook of observer. " We can also exclude any dynamic, “splitting” in the quantum process when a superposition take plase, if we take into account that the Schr;dinger evolution of the quantum state (without taking into account the acts of reduction) is absolutely deterministic, so that if we can determine some kind of “initial quantum state” Universe and boundary conditions (which, of course, is impossible to do),and we have unlimited computing resources, we can predict the evolution of the quantum Universe billions of years in advance. From this point of view, it is possible to imagine the quantum Universe as a stationary 4-dimensional space-time object, all the states of which at each moment of time are already predefined. Then the process of selection of a quantum alternative in the measurement process can be described as the choice by consciousness of one of the branches of quantum evolution already existing in the 4-dimensional quantum Universe. The act of measurement does not “split” anything, since “everything has already been split beforehand”, all versions of evolution are already potentially available in the composition of the supertemporal quantum 4-dimensional Universe. At the same time, since quantum superpositions exist as something correlated with the measuring procedure (as a sum of the eigenfunctions of the operator of the measured quantity), the quantum Universe cannot be represented as a set of parallel existing classical worlds (“Multiverse”). There are not exsist a many parallel classical worlds, but many of all possible "classical projections" that are only potentially "contained" in a single quantum Universe.
Taking into account the theory of relativity, with its principle of relativity of simultaneity, allows us to consider the 4-dimensional quantum Universe not as some kind of conditional construction, but something quite real. In relativistic physics, instead of Newtonian absolute space and absolute time, we have a single 4-dimensional space-time continuum having a pseudo-Euclidean metric. Since the time axis for an observer in relativistic physics coincides with his world line (the trajectory of motion in space-time), for each observer, depending on the nature of his relative motion, a single “objective” space-time splits into a temporal and spatial components in a different ways.
Thus, space and time separately do not have an objective status, but they are subjective projections (different for different observers) of an objective (common for all observers) pseudo-Euclidean space-time. Consequently, space and time in relativistic physics turn out to be ontologically homogeneous, and since space is thought of as a length that already contains all of its points (positions in space), it is obvious that time should be considered in the same way - as the existing continuum of time moments located along the world line of the observer, and not as a kind of dynamic change of individual non-extended “moments”. We see that relativistic theory unequivocally leads us to the adoption of a static (eternalistic) model of time (also known as the concept of a “block universe” [11, 12]), in which the past, present and future are equally real. The principle of relativity of simultaneity leads us to the same conclusion. This principle implies the absence of any uniqueness of the moment “now” relative to the moments of the past and future - since the “now” is differently defined for different observers, and for an observer moving at the speed of light all events in Universe will be perceived as synchronic . This implies the same ontological status of the “present”, “past” and “future” - since the differences between them are relative, and they should be thought of as equally real.
From the “eternalism” point of view , the “flow” of time is a subjective (existing only in the consciousness) process of successive scanning of the space-time continuum in our sensory perception. Temporal becoming in this case arises as a result of the “movement” of the subject’s sensory consciousness along the world line of his body. Consciousness, as it were, “reads” in the acts of perception the events located “in Eternity” along the world line of the body, which gives rise to the subjective experience of “temporal becoming ”.
The limited duration of the sensual “now” is in this case a consequence of the ability of sensory consciousness to perceive as a singl whole only a small interval on the time axis. Our sensual "now" has a small length in time (maximum 4 seconds, in the auditory modality - according to psychologists) because we to perceive the surrounding physical reality through some kind of "temporary slit " with a limited length. It is a mistake to think that “there is no past” and “there is no future”, and only the present exists. Both the past and the present and the future, from the point of view of the theory of relativity, are equally real, but our consciousness is functioned in such a way that it cannot perceive events at once along the entire “time axis”, but only capable of sequentially viewing these events through the moving along this axis, and this axis is perceived throu limited "time slit" - which creates for us the illusion of the "passage of time" and the difference between the past, present and future. It is not time that moves or the world in time, but we, our sensory consciousness, “move” through the motionless 4-dimensional physical continuum. It is not physical reality is changed - in it everything that can exist - already exists, but only our perception of this static physical reality changes.
If the time flow exsist only in the sensory perception of the pre-existing (in eternity) reality, does this not mean that all events in our lives are predetermined and free will is illusory? But if we also take into account the quantum nature of physical reality, then we can restore the variability of the future and the possibility of free choice of its options. Since physical objects have wave properties, and waves propagate in all directions at once, the world line of my body, despite its macroscopic nature, can also branch continuously (for example, according to the Schr;dinger cat mechanism, that is, due to a relationship of macrostates of the body and brain and certain quantum processes in the brain occurring at the micro level), and this branching covering all kinds of variations of actions of my body in all kinds of (also infinitely branching) external circumstances. Consciousness selects by perception only one quantum alternative (“branch”), making it perceived (in an intersubjective way - for all consciousnesses of our world), while sensory access to all other alternatives is intersubjectively blocked. In most cases, of course, this choice, in accordance with the principles of quantum theory, is purely random (but taking into account the weight coefficients of the members of the original superposition), but if we assume that in some special cases (related with a perception of actions of our own body) this choice may not be random, but conscious and expedient , then we will restore free will.
But are these nonrandom acts of choosing a member of the superposition possible? If all selective acts of consciousness were purely random, the function of consciousness would be reduced only to the function of sensory perception. But it seems intuitively obvious that it is the phenomenal consciousness (which is “my Self”) that participates in other mental functions — the functions of thinking, memory, and volitional and affective acts. It is me - as “my phenomenal consciousness”, think, experience emotions and make decisions. In particular, as noted above, reliable acts of introspective self-reporting are possible only if phenomenal consciousness itself directly causes them. But all this is possible only if the function of consciousness in the choice of quantum alternanives is not purely random and in some cases this choice may be expedient due to some kind of “information processing” and decision-making directly by the phenomenal consciousness itself, independently of brain function.
Such non-random choices by the consciousness of a member of a superposition will be “anomalous” from the point of view of physics (since it are not assumed in the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics), however, at the same time, any fundamental conservation laws will not be violated - since will be realized physically allowed quantum choices, but with a slightly different frequency than quantum theory predicts. Indeed, conservation laws in quantum physics are fulfilled in each individual case of the measurement act, and not only on average, and therefore in the case of expedient (but potentially physically possible) choices of the quantum alternative, they will not be violated. Therefore, such non-random choices will not contradict the principle of causal closure of the physical Universe - despite the fact that in this case “non-physical” causes of physical events appear. Consciousness chooses one of the branches of the quantum process, but at the same time, the usual physical causality is preserved in each branch. If acts of nonrandom (expedient) selection of quantum alternatives are carried out strictly locally - only in that area of space in which the observer consciousness is directly “localized” (the area that consciousness directly perceives, and this is obviously some area inside the brain) and if the expedient selection of alternatives concerns only alternatives of the individual’s behavioral acts, and not alternatives to his perceptions of the outside world, there are no contradictions with the theory of relativity ( principle of Lorentz invariance of physical laws).
Note that using a specially organized measurement (observation) procedure, it is quite possible to control the evolution of a quantum state without any violation of the probabilistic principles of quantum mechanics. For this, the quantum Antizenon effect can be used [17]. In this case, instead of a continuous (or quasicontinuous) measurement, answering the question: is the system in the initial state — which leads to a freezing of the evolution of the system (Zenon quantum effect), it is necessary to make different measurements in each time, answering the question: is the system in state Ô (t) - where Ô (t) initially slightly differs from the initial state, but at the same time smoothly changes in time in the direction we need. If the measurement is carried out often enough, and ; (t) varies quite smoothly in time, then with probability arbitrarily close to one the system will find itself in the state ; (t) after the next measurement and we can purposefully control the evolution of the state of this quantum system. Thus, it can be assumed that consciousness also using an similar effect by ruling the evolution of the quantum state of the brain through the same kind of mechanism of the guided observation. In this case, we do not need a hypothesis about the possibility of a expedient selection of quantum alternatives that violates the strictly random nature of the act of the wave function reduction. Other mechanisms are also possible for the expedient effect of consciousness on quantum processes in the brain through a selective observation procedure: for example, if coherent quantum processes play a significant role in nerve cells (as is currently established for photosynthesis), then the consciousness through the acts of observation can be destroy coherence due to the random selection of one of the quantum alternatives, which can significantly change the nature of neural processes. Another possible mechanism: slowdown of certain hypothetical quantum processes associated with the spontaneous generation of action potentials in nerve cells through the quantum Zeno effect.
Here we also need to recall that our model of “consciousness in the quantum world” does not imply any influence of consciousness on physical reality at all - since selective acts carried out by consciousnesses take place only in the intersubjective perception of these consciousnesses and this acts do not able to change anything in the physical world itself. Consciousness only selectively perceives physical reality, but does not affect it in any way. However, if the acts of selection in some cases (relating, for example, to the perception of the movements of one’s own body) are expedient, then for the consciousnesses themselves there is an intersubjective (significant for all consciousnesses of the given community) illusion of the possibility of expedient action of consciousness on matter.
Consciousness does not affect either our body or our brain. It's just that it selectively perceives our body and brain, which, as a quantum systems, are in a superposition state relative to the possible spectrum of behavioral acts (body movements) being carried out. Carrying out an selection of a quantum alternative, consciousness chooses (by perception) that component of a quantum superposition of brain states that contains the desired action option corresponding to the decision made by the subject, and ignores all other options existing in the original superposition (at the same time, it irreversibly closes access to their perception for themselves and for other subjects). For example, I want to raise my hand. In order to realize this desire, consciousness selects from the superposition of the states of command neurons (which probably describes all possible variants of initiating all kinds of behavioral acts at once) exactly the state that initiates the action of raising the hand and makes this state perceptible. Due to the self-consistency of the choice made, I perceive the consequences of this choice, i.e. I see that I raised my hand, and due to the conditions of intersubjectivity, other observers see the same thing.
The choice is made from what already exists in the 4-dimensional quantum universe, i.e. consciousness expedient chooses and perceives the already pre-existing version of the development of events that seems to him the most desirable, reasonable and expedient, without having, at the same time, any effect on real physical processes. Consciousness acts only on itself and on other consciousnesses, and only in consciousness (in sensory perception) does the dynamics of the “physical world” arise, which, as we have already noted, is actually the dynamics of theprojection function displaying absolutely unknown quantum reality into our intersubjective sensory perception.
We noted above that the brain (like any classical object), according to our model, exists only in intersubjective memory and perception, but does not exist “objectively”, regardless of consciousnesses. In this case, how can one explain the empirically observed dependence of the function of consciousness on the brain? The brain, in our model, can be considered as a system of limitation, which consciousnesses intersubjectively impose on themselves (in the process of selecting quantum alternatives). We can clarify the relationship of the brain and consciousness using a computer metaphor. Let us liken consciousness to a computer (as a physical device). Then the brain can be likened to the computer’s operating system, which controls its work, and the computer data processing can be likened to the perception of external world. The operating system exists as a set of restrictions imposed on the degrees of freedom of the computer, and as such it exists only as a certain state of the computer itself (as part of the contents of its memory) and does not exist regardless of computer. Similarly, the brain exists as a system of restrictions on the states of freedom of consciousness and exists only in consciousness (in intersubjective perception and intersubjective memory) and does not have any exsistens outside of consciousnesses. But just as damage to the operating system disrupts the computer function, so brain damage disrupts the normal functioning of consciousness, despite the fact that in this case the brain exists only as a phenomenon of consciousness and, therefore, it does not generate consciousness, but, on the contrary, it is generated by many intersubjective acts of selection of quantum states, carried out in perception and recorded in the memory of these consciousnesses. Thus, to explain the dependence of the function of consciousness on the brain, we only need to assume that the function of consciousness depends on the specific contents of its intersubjective memory (just like the function of a computer specifically depends on the operating system contained in its memory).
So, on the basis of a completely native interpretation of quantum mechanics, we got a kind of “anti-naturalistic” model of the relationship between consciousness and physical reality, in which not consciousness is something derived from physical processes, but, on the contrary, physical reality as something quite definite (classically or even quantum mechanically) exists only in intersubjective perception and intersubjective memory of some community of consciousnesses. In this model, it is not the brain that generates consciousness, but the consciousness create the brain itself, by a combination of random and expedient choices of a quantum alternative (in particular, probably, by appropriate selection of the quantum branches of the evolutionary process). Also in this model, physical reality itself is devoid of any dynamics, and as it were, “dwells in Eternity,” and any movement in time is related only to sensory consciousness, in which this multivariant “Eternity” sequentially selectively unfolds in time as a sensory "picture" perceived by us.
We mast show that the conception of “consciousness in the quantum world” allows us to easily solve the above unsolvable problems of the philosophy of consciousness (nature of sensory qualia, integrity, individuality, and the “causal ability” of phenomenal consciousness ) that unsolvable for naturalistic theories of consciousness. We recall that the essence of these problems is that physical reality is devoid of a number of properties inherent in consciousness: it is devoid of qualita, the individuality and form of integrity characteristic of phenomenal consciousness, and thus, if we postulate the derivation of consciousness from matter (brain) , then all of these properties of phenomenal consciousness are inexplicable - they simply have nowhere to come from. The solution to this problem, as noted, is either the dualism of matter and consciousness, or radical idealism that puts physical reality itself “inside” consciousness. In both cases, we have “something” besides physical reality, and this “something” is the carrier of physically inexplicable properties of phenomenal consciousness. Since in our model physical reality as a whole, as something quite definite, exists only in the intersubjective memory of a certain community of consciousnesses, our model can be classified as some kind of radical idealism.
The existence of physical reality in intersubjective memory fully explains absentin phisical world of qualia , individuality and forms of integrity that characteristic of consciousness . Physical reality is devoid of qualities, since information in intersubjective memory is apparently stored in a purely “ideal”, supersensible form - just as is the case in our individual long-term memory. The latter is obvious by the example of semantic memory - providing a function of understanding. In order to understand something, to grasp the meaning of any perceived object, it is necessary to correlate it with certain contexts - information that reveals the properties, origin, purpose, potentialities of this object. However, such a grasp of meaning is obviously perform in a supersensible form - we do not “unload” all this information necessary for understanding each time into the sensory consciousness - it remains as if “invisible”, “imperceptible”, but, nevertheless, it is clearly present in our consciousness in the form of the phenomenon of meaning we are experiencing. In this situation, this contextual information manifests itself in the form in which it apparently exists outside of sensory consciousness - as something “invisible”, devoid of a sensory form, like something similar to Platonic “eidos”. Apparently, the physical Universe exists in the same “invisible”, non-qualitative form - as the contents of intersubjective memory. In this case, physical reality is something like the Platonic “world of ideas” - this is “pure knowledge” devoid of any form of sensory representation , namely, deprived of quality, spatiality and temporality (recall that “space-time” in the theory of relativity is neither space nor time, but there is a certain “abstract” entity that “generates” space and time as separate dimensions of being, only projecting into the frame of reference (consciousness) of a particular observer). Qualia, space and time perceived by us, exist only in the sensory sphere of consciousness - as qualities and as spatial and temporal properties of our sensations.
Individuality in this model appears, firstly, at the level of the sensory component of consciousness - since our sphere of sensuality is obviously private - only our own sensory experiences are available to us and, secondly, at the level of dynamic mental processes: such as perception, thinking, imagination, volition, affects - which in this model can be represented as various parallel channels of “projecting” the supra-individual contents of intersubjective memory into various individual private “sensory worlds”. Such channels of “projecting” in addition to sensory perception are will and thinking and imagination, and since we can to think and imagine what is physically impossible, we can conclude from this that intersubjective memory also contains ( in a supersensible form) “others physical worlds”, that together constitute what Leibniz called the “set of all possible worlds”. Moreover, these “other worlds” can be scaned only individually, in the imagination and thinking of a specific subject, and they do not form any common intersubjective reality.
The supra-individual status of intersubjective memory also explains the absence in the physical world of the form of integrity that is characteristic of individual consciousness. This integrity of consciousness is directly related to the problem of individuality. My individual “Self” is a certain unity of the sensory and supersensible (semantic) phenomena that I experience. In other words, “Self” - this is my consciousness, considered from the point of view of its unity - both synchronic and diachronic. The synchronic unity of consciousness is manifested, for example, in the form of the existence of sensory gestalt - we experience not separate sensations, independent of each other, but integral structures in which individual sensory phenomena are experienced togever with its own relationship. These sensual gestalt (perceptual images), in turn, are combined into a single polymodal perceptual field of the subject. But even sensual gestalt can be diachronic - an example of which is the perception of a musical melody.
However, the unity of consciousness goes beyond the realms of the sensory. We have the ability to grasp the meaning of prolonged events - for example, an prolonged film, a book that is read for many days, etc. All this indicates a temporary non-locality of our consciousness, going far beyond the limits of a small period of the sensual "now." If we believe in the real self-identity of our “Self” in time, then this faith also implies a temporary non-locality (temporary integrity) of our consciousness. It is clear that reliable knowledge that I am the same self-identical subject, say, today and ten years ago, can be obtained only if there is some way to directly compare my present and past “Self”. But if the past does not exist, as is often thought, then such a comparison is in principle not possible, and therefore, no reliable knowledge of one's own self-identity in time is also possible. If such reliable knowledge of own self-identity does exist, then there must be a way to directly correlate the past and present states of my consciousness, and this is possible only if consciousness is nonlocal in time (the past exists as real as the present) and if consciousness has also some kind of super-temporal integrity - the ability of directl experience the immanent relation of different in time elements of consciousness. This super-temporal correlation is directly experienced by us as a phenomenon of meaning. In fact, the meaning is born from the relation to the context. But these contexts are mostly exsist in the past (as elements of past experience). Thus, meaning can be understood as the effect of temporary nonlocality of consciousness - our past does not disappear anywhere, but as a kind of supersensible background, it constantly resides in our consciousness (while remaining in the past, not moving to the present) and thus any object of perception immediately becomes meaningful through correlation with this meaning-forming background that is in the past. The meaning, in part, also depends on the future, therefore, all kinds of options for the future should also be included in my non-local in time consciousness [3].
It is clear that the described form of integrity exists only within the individual consciousness. The very qualification of some experience as “my experience” presupposes the inclusion of this experience in the composition of an super-temporal holistic system of experiences, which is my true self-identical “Self”. From this point of view, the nature of the relationship between elements of “my experiences” and elements of experiences belonging to different individes should be radically different. Then physical reality, as part of the content of intersubjective memory, cannot have the same form of integrity as individual consciousness - otherwise this memory would lose its supra-individual status. Therefore, we do not find in the physical world something similar to the unity of phenomenal consciousness.
Then there remains the problem of the “causal ability” of phenomenal consciousness, the solution of which, as we have shown above, presupposes an essential connection between phenomenology and the function of consciousness - so without the phenomenal consciousness the function of consciousness should be logically impossible, fundamentally unrealizable. Within the framework of naturalism, as we have seen, this problem is insoluble. If it is the brain, its work, that is responsible for the function of consciousness, then phenomenal consciousness turns out to be a kind of “powerless shadow” of brain function, inevitably turns into an epiphenomenon. Therefore, to solve this problem, it is necessary that the function of consciousness is not identical to the function of the brain - there must be some extrasomatic (not inexplicable from the point of view of the structure and operation of the brain) component of the function of consciousness. But such a component appears in the framework of the concept of “consciousness in the quantum world” if we admit the possibility of the existence of not only random, but also expedient acts of selection of the quantum alternative, performed by phenomenal consciousness.
The problem of “causal ability,” as we have seen, can be formulated as the problem of the existence of p-zombies. If p-zombies are logically possible, then the phenomenal consciousness does not have its own “causal power” and is not able to reliably judge its own existence. It is clear that if our concept of the existence of a certain (classically or even quantum mechanically) physical reality only in the intersubjective perception and memory of a certain group of consciousnesses is true, and also if there is a function of expedient choice of a quantum alternative, that performed by phenomenal consciousness through acts of perception, then, obviously, the existence p-zombie becomes fundamentally impossible. Firstly, the "zombie world" is not possible, i.e. a situation where there is a physically identical world to our Universe, in which there are also people, animals, etc., but in this world there is no phenomenal consciousness at all. But if there is no phenomenal consciousness, then, from the point of view of the interpretation of quantum mechanics we have adopted, there is no any certain classical or even quantum reality, which means there are no stars, no planets, no people, no animals, no brains, etc. And that means there is no p-zombie. Secondly, I cannot be a zombie who says that he is not a zombie, because if there is some physical dynamics (brain work, a sequence of statements), then there is certainly a phenomenal consciousness in which this dynamics can exist. So, if there is a certain flow of time, a certain functioning in time, then the one who states that he is clearly not a zombie - then he is right, because the presence of time dynamics unambiguously means the presence of a phenomenal consciousness, inside of which a flow of time takes place. Thus, we get the answer to the well-known question of D. Chalmers: “Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel? ” [15]. The thing is that nothing happens outside the phenomenal consciousness, since any movement in time, any stream of events takes place only in the phenomenal consciousness. Thirdly, the people around me, if they look completely normal, cannot be p-zombies, because otherwise they would be mentally disabled , because would be deprived of the aforementioned extrasomatic component of the function of consciousness associated with the ability of consciousness to expediently select quantum alternatives.
This extrasomatic component exists only in intersubjective perception and intersubjective memory of consciousnesses, and therefore, it is inextricably linked with phenomenology. Thus, the principle of the essential connection between the function and the phenomenology of consciousness is realized here, which is necessary to justify the “causal ability” of phenomenal consciousness and the subject’s ability to reliably judge whether he has an “inner world”. In this case, the phenomenal consciousness itself initiates a report on the presence of certain phenomenal experiences. This process of determination by the phenomenal consciousness of a report on oneself can be represented as follows. Consider the human brain in terms of quantum relativistic theory. It will look like a 4-dimensional spatio-temporal object extended in the temporal dimension (along the world line of the body), and it is a subject to “branching” due to its quantum properties (which, as noted above, can be carried out according to the “Schr;dinger cat” mechanism, i.e. due to the “transfer” of superpositional states from the micro level to the macro level). Let us imagine this brain extended in time as a kind of “tube”, inside of which a sensory consciousness “moves” as a kind of “short impulse” ( it has duration of the sensory “now”). If there is a function of appropriate selection of quantum alternatives, then at the points of quantum branching of the brain, consciousness will be able to expediently choose its further “route of movement”, i.e. choose the branch he needs for further quantum evolution of the brain. Suppose I am experiencing something red and want to say, "I see red." Then, in order to initiate the desired statement, the consciousness finds the branch of the quantum process in which I, as it were, are preliminarily depicted as saying: “I see red”, and makes this branch intersubjectively perceived, while blocking all other branches - in which I speak or do something alternative. Due to the self-consistency and intersubjectivity of the choice made, I perceive myself as saying: “I see red” and the people around me perceive this statement.
So, we also found a solution to the problem of “causal ability” of phenomenal consciousness. Another important question remains: how, in fact, can this extrasomatic component of the function of consciousness (associated with the expedient selection function) manifest itself? Obviously, it should be associated with such functional aspects of consciousness, the naturalistic explanation of which seems most doubtful. In our opinion, this is primarily the ability of consciousness to creative thinking. The elementary act of creative thinking is the so-called “insight” - the ability to solve behavioral problems for which there are no congenital or acquired (learned) behavior programs. An analysis of the behavior of lower animals shows that in the absence of an inborn behavioral program, a new program of behavior can be formed only gradually, by trial and error, in the form of a system of conditioned reflexes. This is natural, because any behavior program, from the point of view of neurophysiology, requires the existence of a neural network that provides this behavior, and formation of this neural network takes considerable time and requires multiple repetitions of the problem situation to consolidate the necessary interneuronal connections. However, humans and, to a lesser extent, some higher animals (apes, cetaceans, some birds) have an amazing ability to immediately (without training, without trial and error) solve problems for which there are no congenital and learned behavior programs. This ability is called "insight". Due to the extreme difficulty in explaining this ability from the standpoint of the physiology of the nervous system, it is natural to assume that insight is the elementary manifestation of the extrasomatic component of the function of consciousness. A larger manifestation of this component is the creative intellect of man, which is absent in animals, and which is so far unsuccessfully one trying to simulate using computer technology.
Artificial intelligence enthusiasts propose that a brain as a kind of extremely powerful “meat computer”, in which complex neural networks a deep information processing performed. Since, according to the McCulloch-Pitts theorem, any finite neural network is equivalent to a Turing machine, the problem of creating artificial intelligence seems fundamentally solvable - provided that sufficient power and memory capacity of our computers. For example, this can be achieved in principle by directly simulating the operation of the neural network of the brain on a supercomputer. However, is the brain really such a powerful device for processing information, as is usually imagined? Doubts arise as soon as we compare the speed capabilities of the brain and computer. In a computer an information signal actually moves at a speed close to the speed of light. In the brain, a nerve signal (action potential) moves along the axon at a speed of the order of one hundred meters per second. Thus a computer transmits signals between its work elements about three million times faster than the brain. Other speed parameters of the brain and computer differ in a similar way: so the transistor in the computer can switch 109 times in a second, while the synapse needs about 0.5 ms to transmit only one signal. The computer clock speed is measured in gigahertz, and the average di frequency of neurons impulses is only about a hundred hertz, etc. Everywhere we see a difference in the speed of work in the millions and tens of millions of times. How, then, with such a low speed of operation, the brain can provide such complex information processing and behavior control, which is not available for high-speed computer systems of artificial intelligence? A huge number of elements and connections in the brain do not help (about 80 billion neurons and about 1014 connections between them). In any case, the total number of informationally significant events in the brain does not exceed, according to experts, 1014 - 1016 per second, while we already have supercomputers with a performance of the order of 1017 operations per second (for example, the Sammit supercomputer, having a performance of 122.3 Pflops). Thus, there are already computers that to be at least an order of magnitude more powerful than the brain, but they still can’t cope with the tasks that are usually set for artificial intelligence.
In our opinion, the problem of the lacking "computing power" of the brain can be solved by taking into account the extrasomatic component of the function of consciousness - it is it that "modulating" the brain function at the quantum level ( by expedient selection of the quantum alternatives in proceses to solve behavioral problems), it significantly increases our intellectual abilities. If this extrasomatic component did not exist, then we probably would not differ in the level of complexity of behavior from dogs, cats and most other mammals. Thus, our theory gives a verifiable prediction: it predicts that further studies of brain function will ultimately show that the brain, if evaluated from the point of view of its “technical parameters”, i.e. as a kind of “bio-neurocomputer” , is not able to provide the complex behavior that we people actually demonstrate.
Also, it can be assumed that long-term memory (episodic and semantic) is also extrasomatic, i.e. it does not exist in the brain in the form of a certain physical “engram”, but is fixed precisely in consciousness [5] (which can be connected with the property of temporary nonlocality of consciousness at the “semantic” level). Here it must be remembered that in our concept the brain and our body exist only in the intersubjective perception and memory of a certain community of consciousnesses. This intersubjective memory, in which the results of intersubjective acts of selection of quantum alternatives are recorded, is obviously not a physical record on some material carrier. This is, as it were, a kind of general “spiritual” memory belonging to this community of consciousnesses. But if such a common “spiritual” memory really exists, it would be logical to assume that individual memory is also performed by some kind of “spiritual”, non-physical mechanism. An indirect argument in favor of the “extasomaticity” of individual long-term memory is the experimental data accumulated to date that show the possibility in some cases of successful learning of animals on the background of complete suppression of protein synthesis in the brain [9, 14]. In the same cases, when amnesia nevertheless occurs on the background of inhibition of protein synthesis during learning, it turns out to be reversible. Animal memory is sometimes restored spontaneously and it can also be restored by a reminder procedure (by presenting similar conditional stimuli) or it can be restored using specific optical brain stimulation. If protein synthesis is globally depressed, it is unlikely that any stable “trace” can form in the brain, which is thought to underlie long-term memory. These experimental results, therefore, show that memory is probably possible without the formation of a “trace”, and thus, it may have an extrasomatic (out-of-body) nature - it is stored not in the brain in the form of an “engram”, but directly in the intangible consciousness. The existence of extrasomatic memory is another verifiable aspect of our theory.
Conclusions
So we see that the fundamental problems of the theory of consciousness: the problem of the nature of sensory qualities, individuality, integrity and the “causal ability” of phenomenal consciousness do not have a solution within the framework of a naturalistic understanding of consciousness (as a derivatives from the brain). But they are solvable by the rejection of naturalism - from the standpoint of dualism or radical idealism. Moreover, to substantiate the "anti-naturalistic" point of view, there is no need for any scientific revolution. Idealism, as we have seen, essentially follows directly from the of quantum-relativistic theory. It is enough to correctly interpret this theory and this interpretation is “natural” in the sense that it directly follows from the mathematical apparatus of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity. On the contrary, a naturalistic concept based on a belief in the existence of an “objective reality” independent of consciousness - the reality of those classical objects that we observe around us (including our body and brain), as well as on a belief in an “objective flow of time” and this requires the creation of new physics in which quantum mechanics is replaced by some kind of "realistic" theory with hidden parameters or the theory of "objective reduction", which considers the act of a wave function reduction as a real physical process. But theories with hidden parameters and the theory of objective reduction (as, in particular, noted by Lee Smolin [12]) inevitably conflict with the special theory of relativity (due to the fact that the reduction act is an instantaneous process that occurs simultaneously in the whole volume of space - which violates the prohibition of long-range action and the principle of relativity of the simultaneity of the theory of relativity). Therefore, to justify “realism”, it is also necessary to replace the theory of relativity with some other theory of space and time (see [12]). Thus, no new physics is needed to justify idealism (the derivativeness of matter from consciousness). It is only necessary to fully accept the completely obvious anti-realistic consequences that directly follow from the meaning of the existing quantum-relativistic theory. Whereas in order to justify naturalism and “realism” - concepts that are usually considered “consistent with common sense,” we just need a radical revolution in physics. In our opinion, there are no intraphysical grounds for such a revolution - except, perhaps, a stubborn desire of individual scientists to consider the classical macrocosm and its temporal dynamics as “real” ones, existing independently of consciousness.
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